A Shrouded World (Book 7): Hvergelmir
Page 27
“The boxes aren’t working!” I shouted, repeating the phrase. A few whipped their heads my way, understanding. What they did with that information, I did not know. Finally, Churchill picked up on what I was trying to do. His standard, one-word phrase seemed to have more impact as the frenzied retreat began to turn into a frantic attack. Anger boiled to the surface quickly, overcoming hunger and fatigue. The wars the whistlers had raged on their worlds, the slavery, the ill-treatment, fuck, even the food, they were done, and they had a chance at some payback. Without the boxes to drop them on the ground, the staplers couldn’t keep up with the sheer number of those revolting. Whistlers were being dismembered, eaten, beaten, gored, impaled, poisoned, and stomped to death.
In the span of a minute, we went from being outnumbered a thousand to one to flipping those numbers completely. It wouldn’t be long until the hovercrafts came; it was too much to hope that they would not be working as well. We could destroy every whistler on the ground, but without air superiority, they could kill with impunity. I still didn’t know what the hell we were going to do. I peeked around the edge of Bob; we were approaching the bottom. The whistler guards, which had, for the most part, been sporadic on our trek, were seemingly now all being dealt with, and the squad that had been in hot pursuit within the pyramid was not likely to make it through the sea of bodies in their way. The aliens on the ramp above us were fighting like they had nothing left to lose, and from what I’d seen, that might be the truth. How many of their worlds no longer existed other than to feed the whistler machine? Literally.
The loop around my waist retracted and the step I was on began to shrink. I jumped off as Bob started to slow down. Church was by his side as Bob came to a complete stop. I was looking for threats, nothing yet. The alien slaves around us were either fleeing into the desert or heading up to get their licks in.
“Milk.” Bob sounded exhausted.
“Stop them? How? Why?” I wasn’t going to stand in front of them with my hands up; some were smaller in size than myself, others towered. Besides, they all had a mission in mind, and the mission they were performing was A-Okay with me. I mistakenly figured Bob wanted some help hefting the thing; that I understood.
“Bob," he sighed.
“Boom? Boom what? The battery? That thing is going to blow-up? Shit.” I warned as best I could, shouting until my throat was raw; some heard and listened, most continued on the track they’d chosen. Once we saw the hovercrafts approaching, I figured due diligence had been done. “We have to go. Can you run, Bob?”
His eyes did the nod thing. Probably didn’t need to ask, as he was up and hauling ass. The good thing about the massive jailbreak is that we weren’t out here alone. It was a shitty way to think, but if anyone was going to get shot at, I was glad it wasn’t us. The crafts came close, strafing the area, destroying everything they targeted. One got even closer, a hundred yards to our right, moving slowly and tearing the ground and the fleeing aliens up. I aimed in, not thrilled I was going to make myself a target if this didn’t work, but I had to. I pulled the trigger twice; only one shot was necessary.
The craft listed to the side and plummeted to the ground. There wasn’t the fiery explosion I’m sure the pilot would have wanted, because as soon as he emerged from his battered craft, he was set upon by a crowd seeking justice. Bob came to a stop and looked to me.
“Milk.”
“Shoot the ball? That ball?” I was looking back, the thing was now not much bigger than a golf ball in my field of vision. “You couldn’t have said that back when it looked like a beach ball? Shit Bob, that’s got to be a thousand yards. I don’t know if this thing has that kind of distance in it.” He said nothing, nor did Church as they watched me. I thought about doing it from one knee, but at this distance, even my heartbeat would throw the shot off by feet. I got down into the prone position, resting the majority of the rifle on the ground. I was trying to get my breathing regulated before I put the stock against my shoulder, the approaching hovercrafts not helping. They were coming to see what had happened, and I imagine get their retribution.
I took a couple of hopefully calming breaths and fired. I couldn’t tell if I’d hit or not. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to happen. The hovercrafts had opened fire on the crowd that had savagely killed the pilot. Wouldn’t be long until they turned their attention our way, would have been impossible to miss the rifles. I fired again. Again, nothing of note happened except I had, indeed, gained the attention of one of the crafts. It was turning, Church was firing at it, but as of yet had not struck. I fired again, saw perhaps a trick of the eye or the yellowish spark of a bullet hitting steel.
“BOB!” Bob shouted.
We started running; I figured to get away from the hovercraft. I had not been expecting the ground to ripple or the shockwave that slammed into my back to launch me some ten feet. I was spitting sand out of my mouth as arcs of lightning shot across the sky. They seemed particularly attracted to metallic objects flying around. I got up as quickly as I could, the ground was still swaying, I chanced the briefest of glances over my shoulder to figure out why. The pyramid was toppling over. I would have been mesmerized if I hadn't been running for my life. It twisted as it was coming down, heading more to our left. If it had been coming our way, I would have just stopped to watch the mountain fall, as no amount of running would have been far enough. As it was, giant boulders of rock were falling all around us, the majority behind, but every once in a while, one would fall ahead of us to let us know we weren’t entirely out of the thick of it. After five minutes of sprinting, the ground quake had been reduced to a tremble, and the mountain was laying on its side.
I had my hands on my knees, sucking in air. I managed at one point to say. “We fucking did it.” My head was hanging low. I couldn’t believe it; we had actually done it. I wanted Jack, Trip and BT to be here, to have us all celebrate this momentous war-altering event. Church tenderly touched my back.
“Kill," he said, pointing off into the distance.
I fell to my knees when the dust settled and I could understand what I was looking at. There were ten, a dozen, maybe more pyramids far off on the horizon, each just like the one we had destroyed, and those were only the ones I could see. We had just dealt the whistlers and their masters a significant defeat, but what it would mean in the history books was yet to be determined. This war was far from over.
About Mark Tufo
Mark Tufo was born in Boston Massachusetts. He attended UMASS Amherst where he obtained a BA and later joined the US Marine Corp. He was stationed in Parris Island SC, Twenty Nine Palms CA and Kaneohe Bay Hawaii. After his tour he went into the Human Resources field with a worldwide financial institution and has gone back to college at CTU to complete his masters.
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He has written the Indian Hill trilogy with the first Indian Hill - Encounters being published for the Amazon Kindle in July 2009. He has since written the Zombie Fallout series and is working on a new zombie book.
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He lives in Maine with his wife, three kids and two English bulldogs. Visit him at marktufo.com or http://zombiefallout.blogspot.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mark-Tufo/133954330009843 for news on his next two installments of the Indian Hill trilogy and upcoming installments of the Zombie Fallout series.
I love hearing from readers, you can reach me at:
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mark@marktufo.com
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All books are available in audio version at Audible.com or itunes.
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All books are available in print at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.com
About John O’Brien
John O'Brien is
a former Air Force fighter instructor pilot who transitioned to Special Operations for the latter part of his career gathering his campaign ribbon for Desert Storm. Immediately following his military service, John became a firefighter/EMT with a local department. Along with becoming a firefighter, he fell into the Information Technology industry in corporate management. Currently, John is writing full-time on the series, A New World.
As a former marathon runner, John lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and can now be found kayaking out in the waters of Puget Sound, mountain biking in the Capital Forest, hiking in the Olympic Peninsula, or pedaling his road bike along the many scenic roads.
You Can Find him at:
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Merchandise Store:
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A Shrouded World The Series
Whistlers Book 1
Atlantis Book 2
Convergence Book 3
Valhalla Book 4
Asabron Book 5
Bitfrost Book 6
Hvergelmir Book 7
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To be determined Book 8 October 27th!